Cendrillonesque
by weland
Summary: Slightly AU. What if the heroine's father and "evil/wicked" step-mother had a child before his obligatory demise? Read: they have four daughters, rather than the customary three.
1. Chapter 1

Cendrillonesque Part 1

Disclaimer: Why do they even make us put these in? Anyone who thinks that fan fiction writers are trying to claim ownership of Rurouni Kenshin (when they are not Watsuki-sensei or Sony or any of the other corporations that have a legal right to do anything with RuroKen that they want and get paid for it) has got to be crazy. I am not one of those legally-entitled people. I have no interest in revenue from this project. It is a literary exercise to provide amusement. The only thing I expect or will accept as recompense is a review from as many readers as deign to submit one. And those don't cost anything. The queen is six cows.

Part 1

The witch was away. Born Komagata Yumi, a beautiful and educated woman, she was my mother and step-mother to my half-sisters, the three daughters of my father, Kamiya Koshijirou, a great samurai in his time. I was always puzzled why he had married her. She was enough like a witch to her family and in her hobbies to be called one, which I later learned was quite apt. She was a cruel, angry, loveless woman besides, in all the stories and warnings from my closest sister and servants, who protected me from her. I think she had been hoping for a son, an heir to my father's estate, but bearing a child just once seems to have been more than enough for her. I hardly knew him, for reasons which I will explain in time.

My half-sisters Megumi, Shura and Kaoru were as different as peaches and melons. Being so much younger than they, my knowledge of them consists of vague memories.

Megumi. I always thought she was the most beautiful, with the rich black hair that gleamed like sunlight on water. I remember she always liked fine things, which she seems to have had in common with my mother. She was in her teens when I was born and took my father's disappearance and the resulting hard times as a kind of personal insult, for we could no longer afford the fine things, the fine dishes, furnishings, clothing and servants to which she had been accustomed. She was the most ladylike by far. She got along with my mother quite well; I remember them closeted or going into town together. Our cook tells me that this was common even before my father's death. When I got older I was always scared by her, she was so elegant. It was my relief that she barely had anything to do with me.

Shura. My sister with hair so dark (she insisted that it was brown, not black) that it trapped the light and never gleamed, was of like mind, but her resentment was silent, confined to a private perpetual groom, scowling glances, heavy sighs. I remember she used to make ruckus about everything, from things she didn't like to the things she did. It always hurt my ears.

But my mother got them both married off to very rich men completely charmed by their beauty and elegance, for they were gracious and sparkling in company, though neither of them got the man every girl wanted, Kenshin Himura, the son of the richest and most powerful man in twelve provinces, Hiko Seijurou. And I'm glad. They didn't deserve him; it was Kaoru who did.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Kaoru was devastated by the death of our father, whom she had loved whole-heartedly. She had hung on his every word, always begging him for stories of his battles, even cajoling him into teaching her how to wield a sword, though she never went past a bokken, after my father let her hold his katana; she had decided it was much too heavy Even before the funeral she found me confused by the commotion.

"I'll be mother and father to us both, now," she told me. For my mother I did not exist, though I now think she might have paid more attention had I been a son. Kaoru, when I was very unhappy, told me how my father used to dote on me, how I would always race to meet him when he came home, how he would laugh at the consternation of my mother and sisters at my lack of propriety, refusing to excuse a child's innocent enthusiasm. Kaoru took it upon herself to raise me. We could not keep my nurse, nor many of the servants. "We can't afford it," my mother said. Because my older sisters were so refined, they were to be furthered in their finishing and launched promptly into society in order to improve the family's situation by marriage to wealth.

After the funeral, my mother Yumi decided that Kaoru was too young to marry and too kind, I think, to have a place in that world, so she set her to work as our finest and most public servant. I would follow her everywhere as she did her chores and her errands, helping as a five-year-old can. Even with her work, she would find time to sit with me, to play with me, to feed, wash, dress me, teach me the names of birds and plants, spin a top, or catch a ball.

Meanwhile, mother closed off the non-essential rooms and sold everything. She bought just enough finery to maintain the illusion of great wealth for her guests and guarded the rest carefully. It was a large house, after all. Servants' quarters were even more sparsely furnished than before, but I much preferred sleeping with them than with my eldest sisters and mother. Often I would sneak into the closed part of the house to play. Mother never came there. Kaoru snuck with me on occasion to practice using her bokken.

I was invisible to my mother. Kaoru wasn't the only servant. The cook and the laundress stayed on, partly because they cared for the family, were settled as part of the household and besides had no other place to go at their advanced age, rather than any positive quality of my mother's. Besides, they had children of their own who could be put to work and the odd young nephew who was too small and young to be put to work and so with whom I could play. Yahiko was my dearest friend, especially after Kaoru married.

She sometimes had to go into town or take charms and potions to the witch's customers. On one occasion she had to personally deliver something to the Seijurou household. He had been a friend of our father's and the long line of Seijurou Hiko's had been friendly to our family for thirteen generations (and looked to be 14 the way Kenshin and Kaoru got on), so my mother was convinced she could get one of her step-daughters securely wedded into his family. When Kaoru came back, cheeks beaming, eyes sparkling, that Seijurou-sama – we didn't know his real name, just that Seijurou Hiko was the title given to the head of the family – had recognized her and asked after her health and the family and had introduced his son, Kenshin, to her. After that, Kaoru and he would meet, sending messages back and forth.

Yahiko and I made a great game out of it, for we were often the messengers. Kenshin, as he insisted we call him, would always send us off with a kind word or a gift of some sort: once a whistle, once a boat that we sailed in the laundry tubs, other times candy, once a ride on his horse, once a kitten when his mother's cat gave birth. In this way he let us know long in advance about his father's plan to host a great party in his honor of his proving himself a man and becoming the designated, official heir to the present Seijurou Hiko. Kenshin and Kaoru made plans accordingly.

His father, a bit eccentric and a bit slow to respond to requests made by members of his family, planned to invite all the fine people of the district. My mother, Megumi and Shura were ecstatic upon the receipt of an invitation, the realization of their hopes and plans. Kenshin did not see the point of the events, but nevertheless determined to please his father. He confessed to us that he didn't like being in the public eye and plotted to make sure that he could bear it. Knowing about our troubles he arranged to ensure the attendance of Kaoru, who we knew would never be allowed to come by mother.

Yahiko and I thought it very exciting when he arranged secretly for a dressmaker, a jeweler, and one of his mother's maids to adorn Kaoru, then send a carriage with our crest upon it and matching horses, drive and footmen to convey her late to the party after she had dressed and decorated her mother and elder sisters. The staff was quite pleased about the whole affair, for they remembered Kaoru's mother's kindness and Kaoru's beautiful nature and wished for her to obtain some reward for her goodness. Yahiko and I were so pleased, but quite tired from the preparations.

Kaoru was humming the next day, for she was to be wed to the man she loved best and who loved her. I quite approved, for he was always very good to us even though we were only children. My mother wasn't too disappointed, for other rich men had been enchanted by my other sisters and had been given leave to call on them.

Finally Kaoru and her beloved Kenshin were wed; soon Megumi and Shura too had made fine matches. At last the family prospered again, but they were not _her_ daughters and seems not to have taken an interest in her step-daughters' affairs beyond that point. Instead, she confined herself to the house and devoted her efforts more strictly to her art.

After that, the most entertaining diversion Yahiko and I had was to enter her chambers and spy on her labors. We would take the opportunity when she was away, usually only a few minutes or perhaps an hour or two. It was on one occasion several years later when we had grown so brazen and confident that we entered the workroom built into the side of the hill, at the very bottom of the garden, which one reached by a flight of stairs, stone ones, leading down, down, down to a room long and low with a broad window at the far end, out of which one could climb. The stairs were only accessible through her chambers, which room held her deepest secret.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Be reasonable, people. I'm a smalltime fan fiction writer. I know I don't have the legal right to charge money to read my stories featuring characters that I didn't make up! I don't need it! All you legal owners of RuroKen, you have no infringement issues to risk from me.

Part 2

Komagata Yumi had married my father, borne him a daughter, and a few years later, buried him, so they'd told me. Then she'd married off her daughters. What does a little child know? What Yahiko and I found in her workshop was that she hadn't buried him at all. She kept him in a heavy metal cage, his eyes open, glassy, staring; arms outstretched; mouth perpetually gaping in a kind of shock; his body as if he had been alive just a moment before. I screamed the first time I saw him and immediately dashed up the stairs with Yahiko yelling, "Tsubame!" in confusion, as he hadn't actually entered the room. Rather than investigating the room, he came up to where I was curled shivering on the stairs and sat down beside me. He patted my hair until I stopped crying and managed to tell him that I had found my father. He told me that he had to see too, so he held my hand as we walked back down into her workshop.

It was better seeing him with my closest friend than alone. He was quite puzzled. My father did not rot nor decay nor stink. Such a witch my mother was, we realized, with this enchantment. He didn't know how this could have escaped everyone's notice. He was confused, not understanding with my early adolescent mind, why she had married him only to tire and transform him. Why then would she keep the body?

The alarm we felt kept us away until curiosity got the better of Yahiko, and he convinced me to go back. Many times. Repeated viewings accustomed us to the bizarre sight and wore away our terror, which he had concealed, he confessed, until we could look at him thoughtfully for extended periods. Eventually we grew bold enough to explore the rest of the items in her workroom, a few times staying too long, having to hide when my mother entered. She would crow over him, in victory it seemed. Yahiko kept wondering to me why she kept his body either, or how she preserved it.

* * *

The witch was away. Yahiko, my dark unruly-haired friend was with me, as always, and so was the demon we had discovered, who served my mother. She was on a seven-night's journey to get something or some things or a lot of things – one could never tell – for her private, household or artistic business use. I was fascinated with my father's condition and sad that I had never really known him. His relatively unspoiled condition had given us hope of restoring him and with my mother gone for such an extended period, I felt this would be the best opportunity to do so.

I had heard, from the demon, that the transformation could be reversed by laying certain sheets of cloth on his oddly dark skin. The demon told us that she had been trying to revive the body ever since he had been brought down. It didn't like her much, despite the fact that it worked for her – or because of the fact—and was bound magically to serve her until my father was revived. It had refused to tell or show her how, though she had railed and threatened and cajoled. Yahiko pointed out that it could be free of her sooner if it would just revive her. The demon sniffed and said that would please her too much and it was a demon's prerogative to be as obstreperous as it pleased.

The demon, however, was much inclined to displease my mother by reviving him in her prolonged absence and declared it would assist us in reanimating him. We three (Yahiko, the demon, and I) opened the cage, laboriously extricated him from it and laid the stiff body on the heavy wooden worktable in the center of the room, which was in line with the door and the window. The cage itself seemed to be part of the enchantment, for once out of the cage, his body relaxed; it softened from statue to sleeper. His mouth and eyes we closed at last. I never could get used to them.

The three of us set to work wrapping him with the designated cloth. I had two rolls, about three fingers' width. Yahiko had one a hand's length wide. I began wrapping them around his head, Yahiko around his middle in a modicum of modesty and the demon at his feet. When I got them around his eyes I screamed and leapt back. They had blinked! The demon cheered and told me to keep going. As I swathed the strips around his mouth and chin, a rough voice coughed and snarled at us to hurry up. Startled I obeyed.

There was an added urgency to finish. The three of us redoubled our efforts to cover him completely in the rolls of cloth, a spell, really. We finished, terrified in anticipation of unforeseen movement from the body. He blinked, sat up, and growled at us. After the first tremor of movement had passed and as we fled around the room, for he had drawn a katana from its holder on the counter, presumably his, which my mother had kept there just as she had kept the body. He was now trying to lay hold of us as we scurried out of his grasping hands and out of reach of that honed blade.

I realized the source of my confused alarm. Surely this violent man could not be the same as the doting father that Kaoru used to tell me about!

"Father!" I cried, ducking behind a barrel. "Father, it's me! It's Tsubame, your daughter! Please stop!" I pleaded. I ducked again as the blade came crashing down. He gave a yell and wrenched the sword from the wood.

Yahiko grabbed my arm and flew in terror for the window, fell out and ran right across the garden, up the path and down the hill looking for a hiding place which no one looking from above would be able to see. We crept down and flattened myself to earth in the tall grass beside the tangled branches.

I lay there crying until I came to myself in a jolt of panic. Yahiko was gone! I clambered up the hill again, panting, climbed through the window again. It was quiet and my father was gone. The room was a mess. In the midst stood Yahiko, All my mother's tools, plants, shelves were smashed and strewn on the floor. The demon pranced behind. "What are you celebrating, you imp?" he snarled at it. It made a face and disappeared. "I guess that's the end of that," he sighed. "Your dad's revived so I guess the contract is finished and the demon doesn't have to stick around anymore."

"Where is he?" I trembled.

He patted my head. "Let's go look for him. We can't let him tear the place apart, can we? What kind of servant would I be if I failed to take care of my master's stuff?"

I took his hand in both of mine as I followed him out. There was a silent trail of rubbish and ash going before us. We crept up the stairs, but no one else was there. The house seemed deserted. As we went forward through the occupied part of the house, we heard clanging and crashing. Yahiko looked back at me to give me a signal to stay absolutely quiet as we edged up the hall and opened a shoji where the noise was loudest, but it squeaked as it opened. Father's head snapped up and he bared his teeth before leaping towards us. So quickly we turned to scramble away that we fell down. We did get up and start dashing down the hall just as the katana cut through the paper. I screamed as Yahiko yanked me out of the way. He pushed me in front of him and yelled, "Run!"

I looked back and saw him pulling, pushing and throwing the furnishings and decorations in my father's way. One of the strips of cloth caught on the corner of a small table and began to unravel. "Don't look back, baka!" Yahiko hissed at me, shoving me forward. I ran and ran and ran. I had reached the other side of the closed section and collapsed as I panted. There were no sounds of pursuit. Getting up, I started stepping back the way I had come.

"Tsubame!" Yahiko called. "It's okay!"

Feeling slightly assured I stole around a corner. He was standing over my father's body. The strips of cloth had come off. There was a long trail of fabric behind him and more in Yahiko's hand. It looked like Yahiko had helped his traps to remove the bandages. The bare skin was dark and still. The part still covered was moving. He had left the bandages over most of his face, neck and torso. Yahiko looked up at me. "He wouldn't stop swearing and yelling until I took the stuff off his mouth." Crouching down beside the body, he announced. "I'm going to put this back on your mouth as long as you swear to stop screaming. You will answer our questions." The body's eyes narrowed and the rest of the face tried to scowl or glare. It was hard to tell with the mouth immovable. Finally it nodded and Yahiko put the cloth back on its mouth.

The man opened his mouth and stretched, but was silent.

"Father?" My voice wavered. "D-daijoubu-ka?" I queried.

"You – girl! Tsubame!" the mouth yelled. "Get over here right now!"

"H-hai." I knelt next to his head, across from Yahiko.

"Who are you?" he rumbled, looking at me through narrowed eyelids.

"I-I'm your daughter, Tsubame, remember? I thought you were dead!"

"I don't know you and I most certainly don't have a daughter." He snorted. "I don't have any brats, for that matter."

"Father!" I gasped, bringing my hands to my mouth as I burst into tears.

Yahiko kicked his side and he grunted. "Who're you trying to fool? Are you trying to tell us that you are not Kamiya Koujirou? Yeah, right. Why else would Yumi-san have your corpse around?"

"Yumi-san?" he murmured suddenly. "Yumi who?"

"Kamiya Yumi. She's my master and her mother. She used to be Komagata Yumi until she married Tsubame's father, Kamiya Koujirou, a while ago and had a kid. Then he died. Or at least we all thought he died. Come to think of it, Yumi-san didn't seem quite as upset about it as Kaoru, Shura or Megumi."

"Komagata Yumi?" he breathed, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling.

"H-hai," I answered nervously.

"Well, well. You may have some usefulness after all. To think, all this time…"

"F-father?" I quavered.

"Stop calling me that," he snapped. "I'm not your father. I don't even know any Kamiya. I'm Shishio Makoto. Komagata Yumi was my lover."


End file.
